


The Innocence Of Those Who Come After Us

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Integrated Worlds [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Rarepairstuck 2020, after googling a list of common tropes i went with baby fic, because i like writing how all the kids get adopted in this AU, integrated worlds, prompt: tropes, they have like a weird black/pale thing going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:15:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25164535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: Dualscar growls low in his chest, letting go of the toy and pulling his hand out of the water as he shifts to put himself fully between you and the tub. "Megido—""No weapons." You raise your hands, showing him the proof of that."Howv about your eyes?"Oh. You suppose you forget that those powers grew so strong during your time withher; you blink and feel psionics crackle behind your eyelids. "...damn."The Handmaid goes to check up on Dualscar and finds him busy with a bit more than she expected.
Relationships: Dualscar & The Handmaid
Series: Integrated Worlds [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/999555
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59





	The Innocence Of Those Who Come After Us

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4 of Rarepairstuck 2020!

Going to check up on Dualscar is, you think, a combination of Signless's trying to get you out of Redglare's hair while she negotiates with the human governing body, and his trying to subtly indicate that you need a good pale session to clear your head. Which you don't. You're angry, yes, but it's not that _kind_ of anger—the fury buzzing in your head, louder than your psionics, isn't something that can be lanced and drained away with anything as simple as the act of pinning a certain seadweller against a wall with a dagger-sharp needle pressed to his throat, which is how Dualscar's conciliatory attempts end up half the time.

Well, not the seadweller you're thinking of, anyway. _Her_ , you would like to have pinned. _Her_ , you would drive the needle in deeper than the barely-bleeding pinpricks you might leave your occasional pitch partner with. You would _love_ to rise to your feet with fuchsia staining your hands, paint your face with it, spit the curses you held back all this time onto the wet bitch's corpse as she bleeds out...

It's an effort to reign in the anger. To remind yourself that the Condescension is _gone_ , offplanet, dropped somewhere that you don't know how to reach and don't want to, somewhere deserted and as empty as the space between the stars and quite honestly still better than she deserves.

Much better. You think of Psii's limp body, of Rosa's face in the moments when she thought Sign would not be walking out of that last parlay—of the way she drained _you_ , literally and metaphorically. The scars around Sign's wrists, the way some trolls whisper a name he never chose when he passes by and no one corrects them because it's true, he suffered so badly that the experience can be said to be a defining one. She deserves so much worse, and _they_ wouldn't let you be the one to give it to her.

No. Stop. Swallow the anger and the black desire—you can't be near Ampora if you don't. Swallow it, consume it, make it subservient to you as you have tamed yourself to appear to serve the erstwhile Empress. Then you can knock at Dualscar's door.

And receive no answer.

Hm.

Signless did say he'd been fully absent for days...perhaps this isn't just busywork after all. Perhaps there really is something wrong, even if all you're likely to do about it is to sling the aquatic idiot's silly carcass over your shoulders and drag him to the most convenient medic. Or the most convenient body of water, depending on how you find him—Dualscar's never really understood how to handle change he himself didn't initiate, and unless you misunderstood what you saw from your place at the Empress's side, he was very much a lesser player in this revolution.

Not that you have any objection to him being drunk and stupid. _That_ , you know how to handle.

"Ampora?" No answer. You try the door and find it unlocked; as good as an invitation within the bounds of your clade, which...no, this is who you belong to. Leaving it even long enough to serve as _her_ handmaid has you off-balance, but you won't doubt your place with them. You've been given the right to intrude on Dualscar's quarters, unless he's given the sign he won't welcome it. "Ampora. Vantas is worried about you, idiot."

Still no answer, but you hear splashing. Of course. He's _wet_ again. It's his natural state, you should expect this by now. Maybe he won't have his bulge out this time.

" _Ampora._ " You put all of your disdain into his name as you push the door open...and immediately forget what else you'd planned to say.

Dualscar is on his knees in front of a filled tub, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. One hand's on the floor for balance as he twists to look up at you with the beginnings of a guilty expression on his face; the other is submerged in the water, holding a soft sponge toy meant for grubs. There are three grubs in the water, which is the first problem with this picture—Dualscar has _one_ grub, a chunky little wriggler he's named Cronus after some human deity or another. Cronus is there, yes, chewing on the braided hair of the second grub, who's a tad larger and likely older than they are, and flapping their tail for the third, smaller one to grab at.

They are all seadwellers, obviously. Cronus is the only violet. The other two...

Dualscar growls low in his chest, letting go of the toy and pulling his hand out of the water as he shifts to put himself fully between you and the tub. "Megido—"

"No weapons." You raise your hands, showing him the proof of that.

"Howv about your eyes?"

Oh. You suppose you forget that those powers grew so strong during your time with _her_ ; you blink and feel psionics crackle behind your eyelids. "...damn."

"Yeah. Damn." Dualscar shifts, carefully, and nods at the door behind you. "Close that and sit dowvn?"

Alright. You guess you can do that. And the change of vantage point helps, it really does—from here you may be able to hear the grubs splashing around in the water, but you can't _see_ them. The only entrance to the room being definitively blocked is probably another layer added to the calm that's finally filtering into your mind—funny, how you don't realize how tense you are until you're in a situation that lets you relax.

Dualscar is watching you. "Not going to hurt them, Ampora."

"Yeah, I can tell." He flashes you that infuriatingly endearing crooked grin, his mouth pulling up at the corner like the scars on his temple are a fishhook with an invisible line. To anyone else it might just look like a classic douchey expression; to you it's one more thing that's like a pap without him even touching you. "I can read you like a book, swveetheart."

You hold up your fist, then rob the gesture of any threat it might hold by popping up your middle finger. "Fuck you, Ampora."

"Nowv wvouldn't that be nice." Dualscar snorts and waves a hand at you, dismissing your next reaction of flipping him off with _both_ hands rather than just one. "Howv's Sign, anywvay?"

"Busy. Tired." Dis doesn't let him exhaust himself, but he's still tired—you see it even if he hides it well. There's a way of holding oneself after hours in meetings, like—no. Don't do that. Just _don't._ "Question for question. How did you get those?" 

He makes a face and tips his head back, far enough that his swept-back horns must nearly brush the surface of the water. There's a flurry of splashes as one of the grubs startles at the intrusion. "She fucking sent them to me—I think it's a punishment? Maybe?"

"A punishment." Your voice stays level, more through the long conditioning you went through in her service than any real desire to appear calm. You don't feel very calm right now.

"Like I said—maybe. I—like that idea better than the other one I came up with."

"Which is? Don't tease me here, Ampora."

Dualscar raises his head and fixes you with a pained look. "Hey, ex-fucking-scuse me if it's hard to bring up the possibility that that bitch trusted me. I _like_ not having my bulge ripped off, thanks. I'm attached to that."

Ah, if only he didn't know how to make you smile quite so well. "One more possibility. Mind games. Killing them _would_ turn Alternia against you quite well, if it got out."

"Mmm." Dualscar's eyes slide half-closed as he watches you. It'd be a seductive look, if he weren't so well placed already in your quadrants. "Wvouldn't she send them to you, then? Hell, even Mindfang's a lil' more likely to just wvrite them off as dangerous because they're hers. Keeping grubs safe is part of my _job_ , y'know."

"True." Usually he doesn't keep any orphans from the lusii he has to put down, but that just means he could shuffle these two into the fostering system. They'd be cared for, they'd be far away from him and you and no one would ever know... "Why do you have them here?"

Dualscar's finned ears press down flat against his head as he winces. Oh. He's thought that question over already, then. You'd guess that the answer might let you understand why he's hiding out like this, assuming he gives it to you.

And for a minute or two you wonder if he won't. Then he exhales, slow and almost defeated, and shifts to nudge at your leg with one bare foot. You let him; even if it's not really a proper pap, it's still contact, and it's your job to reassure him.

"She could hawve been Psii's matesprit." It comes out soft, quieter than he usually is. Rueful, maybe. "Signless's kismesis, or yours. Wve wvould havwe taken her into our clade, Handmaid, you _knowv_ wve wvould havwe. If she'd let us—"

"She'd never." There's the anger again. You don't think it's ever going to leave you—the best you can hope for is that it goes quiet now and then, lets you rest. Stars and space, you want to rest. "Even before she took the throne—we were _less_ than her. Not you, not quite so much—"

"Just because she wvanted me as a consort doesn't mean I wvas blind, Megido." Dualscar's nose wrinkles up at the implied insult to his powers of perception. "I knowv she wvas a lost cause. Doesn't mean I cant...wvish she hadn't been."

"...I suppose." The smaller fuchsia grub is trying to climb out of the tub. You watch them struggle for a second, forelegs hooked over the edge but hindlegs uselessly scrabbling on the ceramic, before sighing and exerting that tiny, specific _push_ of willpower that it takes to activate you psionics. The little one squeals, twisting like they're trying to swim through air as you lift them out and float them over to the floor between yourself and Dualscar, depositing them on the tile. "Are these supposed to be your second chance, then?"

"Empty space, I _hope_ not." Dualscar snorts out a laugh, reaching out to unwind a strand of hair from the grub's gently curved horn. "They're...I dunno, but somehowv I don't think Condy meant for me to add them into the clade's kids—I can't just _not_ spit in her face here. Not sure howv I'm going to manage it—"

You're too far away to smack him, but there's still a little power crackling under your skin. You blink, and Dualscar yelps at the jolt. "No."

"No?"

"No games. No lying." You can't explain why, but it would be worse, if these little ones did not understand whose footsteps they follow in. They _are_ children of the Empress, and you can't imagine anyone more qualified to explain what that means than your clade, the clade that dethroned an Empress and might set a new one in place one day. " _I'll_ tell Signless."

It's cute, how his fins perk up. "Wvait, really?"

"Really. Now?"

"I mean...unless you wvanna help me dry them off and get evweryone in the pile for a wvhile first." Dualscar shrugs, giving you an obvious once-over before twisting to get up on his knees and turn back to the tub. "You look like you could use it."

"No comment." Not out loud, at least. To yourself, you have to admit you need the downtime...so you reach up to take one of the towels Dualscar's already laid out on the counter, and scoop the littlest fuchsia up in it.

You haven't held a grub in a while. Long enough to forget how they curl in your arms, how they look up at you with great helpless blood-colored eyes, how the noises they make are higher and softer than an adult troll's or even a child's. Holding this one makes you think that perhaps you can let go of the anger well enough that this won't be so hard after all.

Maybe. You'll get to that eventually, though—for now, all that matters is this moment.


End file.
